D&D General I'm a Fighter, not a Lover: Why the 1e Fighter was so Awesome

[kermit4karate]

For us it's mostly Humans and Elves. Part-Elves used to be really popular but have tailed away dramatically over time. Dwarves are next, then Hobbits, Part-Orcs (who seem to have risen as Part-Elves have fallen), and Gnomes.

Yes. In terms of what got played, Gygax (at least I think it was he) expected something like a 40-30-20-10% long-term ratio of, in order, Fighters, Clerics, Thieves*, and Mages; ignoring Bards and Monks our long-term numbers show that ratio as being very consistent at almost bang on 40-20-20-20.

* - Clerics and Thieves might be reversed, I can never remember which is 30 and which is 20.

Anything goes, here. Low levels in particular can sometimes become exercises in wild-west gonzo infighting, which tends to fade away as the levels get higher.

Greek, Celtic, Norse, Sumerian, several homebrew - and that's just the Humans. Each other species have their own pantheon.

While still in the field, yes.

Between adventures, though, everything gets divided evenly by monetary value; you get a share value, and then can claim magic items up to that share (or higher if you have the spare cash or can borrow it from someone). Unclaimed items, or items no-one can afford, get sold. Thus, if everyone's share is 7500 g.p. one character might get a ring of invisibility for 5K and the other 2500 in coin while another character might get a +1 sword for 2000, two potions of healing for 800 total, and the other 4700 in coin.

Attempts at other division methods over the years have invariably led to one or two greedy characters cleaning up.

Gotta be honest, but I could not care a whole lot less about what the desiccated corpse of this Gygax fellow has to say about anything.

Not to say that I wouldn't be like, "HOLY CRAP!!!! THAT CORPSE IS TALKING!!!!"

P.S. Man, that was cold. Now I feel bad. I take it back, dear Gygaxian corpse. Sorry, have a great night.

 

[kermit4karate]

This thread has really taken me back in time to my younger years. I played AD&D and Basic with a lot of different groups and in my experience, the cliche of no two groups doing it quite the same was true. Even my own games, I had lots of house rules in notebooks and photocopied Dragon articles to tweak things to my taste. I had a Bard class that was heavily influenced by the Bard’s Tale crpgs, but I think no one actually played it, ha!

I tried to incorporate weapon speeds and casting times, inspired when I saw how it worked in the computer game “Pool of Radiance”, but all my players hated it so it got scrapped.

Somebody up thread asked how we rolled attributes, and with every group I gamed with it was pretty much the broken UA system, where you rolled like 9d6 for your primary ability and went down the chain. If you didn’t have at least one 18 you were considered cannon fodder.

And though not my favorite rule set, 2nd edition AD&D had all my favorite settings books. I still use them in modern games for lore and ideas.

2E was my favorite era...but that's because at the time I couldn't imagine a future without THAC0.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm actually not a huge fan of in-combat healing anyway. I really don't care for the "whack-a-mole" effect it often engenders.

I added a level of exhaustion every time you get up from 0 in combat. It makes the group think before healing someone from 0 instead of just stabilizing them. There might be more encounters before a long rest is achieved and exhaustion levels build up.

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah, so? I wouldn't want to be one, would you?

I wouldn't particularly want to be a combat anything in real life.

 

[Maxperson]

They exist just like the rare cleric player.

It was hard to get people to play clerics pre 3.0. Espicially once specialty priests came into the game.

Specialty priests were clerics generally speaking. A few were other classes, like the CG paladin specialty priest of Horus. I never found it hard to get people to play clerics. Clerics were fun as long as you weren't a healbot.

 

[Zardnaar]

Specialty priests were clerics generally speaking. A few were other classes, like the CG paladin specialty priest of Horus. I never found it hard to get people to play clerics. Clerics were fun as long as you weren't a healbot.

I actually saw that priest in action. With a holy avenger.

Think ive handed out a grand total of 2 ever.

 

[Maxperson]

No, they aren't really common. Just look at rings. You've only got a 4% chance of getting a ring, then a 15% chance of having it a protection ring, then a 15% chance of getting anything better than a +2*. The chances are extremely small. Bracers aren't any better (2%, then 19% of that 2%, then 20% of that to get anything decent). And then you have to convince the rest of the party that you should get all of these.

Meanwhile, the cleric is rocking plate and shield quickly that doesn't need to be magical at all.

* out of 1000 random magic items, 40 are rings. 6 are protection rings. Only 1 is +3 or better. 1 out of 1000 isn't exactly what I'd call common.

I'm not doubting your math, but for what it's worth, my experience in 1e/2e was that rings of protection and bracers were fairly common. They also seemed fairly common in official sources and modules on NPCs and in treasure hordes.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm not doubting your math, but for what it's worth, my experience in 1e/2e was that rings of protection and bracers were fairly common. They also seemed fairly common in official sources and modules on NPCs and in treasure hordes.

They were. Its how I has -7 AC as a Druid.

I was running 1E adventures earlier in the year. With C&C. Fighter had 25 AC level 7.

Lots of magic weapons, armor, rings. Everyone else had around 20 AC.

It was Greek themed. You couldn't by anything over AC 16 (full plate etc) didn't exist.

You coukd find it in dungeons though as precursors had it.

 

[Maxperson]

I actually saw thatvpries in action. With a holy avenger.

Think ive handed out a grand total of 2 ever.

Holy Avengers were LG and wouldn't allow themselves to be used by a CG paladin. At least by RAW. I would have made an exception for the paladin of Horus as well.

 

[Maxperson]

They were. Its how I has -7 AC as a Druid.

I was running 1E adventures earlier in the year. With C&C. Fighter had 25 AC level 7.

Lots of magic weapons, armor, rings. Everyone else had around 20 AC.

It was Greek themed. You couldn't by anything over AC 16 (full plate etc) didn't exist.

You coukd find it in dungeons though as precursors had it.

Seems you tripped and fell out of 1e and landed in 3e!